Minerva is committed to adding value for our clients by incorporating ESG factors into its stewardship decision-support services. Our Say on Sustainability service enables investors to integrate their ESG and Stewardship strategies at AGM time.

Say on Sustainability provides timely and insightful analysis of sustainability governance which can be included in voting policy and guidelines.

ESG & Sustainability Governance

ESG and sustainability risks have long been shown to have material impact on company success.

Understanding how investee companies are addressing the risks and opportunities associated with environmental, social and governance issues is therefore critical to the identification of portfolio leaders and laggards.

The Say on Sustainability framework rates global companies on an A-F scale based on six pillars of good sustainability and ESG governance disclosure, including GHG data.

These pillars, and the underlying questions, were developed after of a year-long review of the world’s leading academic papers, together with legal, regulatory and independent sustainability disclosure initiatives. From this, our expert team identified the critical features of good sustainability governance which support superior company performance.

Say on Sustainability provides timely consistent, and comparable data which is material to active ownership

Disclosure & Transparency

What and where are companies disclosing information? Is there risk recognition, socio-environmental performance data or target-setting? Is data timely and accessible?

Management Processes

Who owns sustainability in the firm, who is responsible, how senior?
Are management systems disclosed &/or certified?

Minerva’s dedicated ESG research team is qualified to MSc level in sustainability and have a profound knowledge and understanding of integrated reporting.

The Say on Sustainability score has been designed to be fully incorporated into shareholder voting policies so that investors can, for example, vote to encourage change at companies which fail to disclose their climate change risk management plans or encourage board responsibility for sustainability. The underlying data points can also be used to support stewardship screening and portfolio bench-marking models.

What do Companies Say on Sustainability?

A surprising amount. Historically many companies have used a great deal of boiler plate or so-called greenwash to describe their sustainability governance. There are, however, promising signs of better integrated reporting on the horizon. Despite many positive developments, Minerva’s most recent annual review of sustainability reporting showed:

62% of independent sustainability reports were not up to date with the financial year assessed

Worrying, 11% of those were two or more years out of date – with six years being the most tardy example

Only 32% of companies dedicate responsibility for sustainability to a board leader or specific committee

Just 8% of the US companies analysed were able to meet the quality of reporting achieved by their peers in the UK, EU or Oceania

Only half of the companies surveyed were linking some form of sustainability metrics to variable pay

What do sustainability leaders think of Say on Sustainability?

Professor Robert G Eccles, Founding Chairman of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and one of the founders of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC).

Commenting on the publication of a recent review, Bob Eccles, founding chairman of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board said: ” ‘Say on Sustainability” is a carefully done and important action-oriented research project. While it notes some modest progress in sustainability disclosures by some of the world’s largest companies, it also points out some very specific areas where improvements are needed such as in quality through standardized metrics, timeliness with financial reporting, more explicit linkages between financial and non-financial performance, and materiality determination. The latter ultimately rests with the board. Here too the report notes progress but areas where corporate governance needs to be improved. Manifest rightly points out that boards have a fiduciary duty to the company, not only to shareholders. This means they need to identity the significant audiences to the company which is the basis of determining materiality for reporting purposes. I suggest that this be done on an annual basis through a simple one-page board of directors ‘Statement of Significant Audiences and Materiality.’ This modest suggestion will lead to big improvements in all the key areas this report discusses.”

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